Tuesday, 31 July 2018

The Registry of Deeds Index Project has been updated with recent contributions from volunteer researchers.

As a result, the main Index now holds 278,873 index entries from 30,604 memorials of deeds. In addition, there are now 60,665 townland index transcriptions, and 18,357 grantor index transcriptions on the site. All are freely searchable.

A page from the Grantors' Index,just ripe for transcribing!

Would-be contributors should know that transcribing the townland and grantors' indexes does not require any understanding of land transactions. All that is required is to reproduce information from the written index into a simple spreadsheet. Easy peasy.

See right for an example image (taken from microfilm) of the written Grantors' index, 1860-69; you'll see the writing is clear and the details straightforward. These images are available free on FamilySearch.org.

Simply key the details into a spreadsheet or table using the columns displayed and send to the Project Manager, Nick Reddan FIGRS.

Monday, 30 July 2018

Congratulations are due to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) after it achieved Accredited Archive Service status – the first such award made in Northern Ireland.

Accreditation is managed by the UK Archive Service Accreditation Partnership, a body which defines good practice and agreed standards for archive services across the UK; its accreditation panel looks at an organisation’s ability to develop, care for, and provide access to its collections, and those areas such as resources and planning which underpin those activities.

PRONI's Director Dr Michael Willis commented: 'This prestigious Award is a significant achievement and milestone for PRONI and I am delighted and proud that PRONI was assessed as reaching the national standard enabling us to be awarded Archive Service Accreditation. This is welcome recognition of PRONI's good practices and quality services and is testimony to the ongoing hard work of all PRONI staff to make PRONI the best archive that it can be!‎'

See a list of the 17 UK institutions who gained Accreditation in the last ASA panel here.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society has added images from 33 volumes of registers from the following seven parishes to its browsable Massachusetts Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, 1789-1900 collection on AmericanAncestors.org:

Saturday 4 August: Scottish & Irish Immigration, a workshop with Maggie Loughran. Host and venue: Society of Genealogists, 14 Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Road, London EC1M 7BA, UK. Workshop explores reasons for migration, the history and politics behind it and the type of records to use when researching migrants. 2pm–5pm. Cost: £20. Booking.

Monday 6 August:Public Holiday in Republic of Ireland only. All repositories and libraries closed (except National Library of Ireland's exhibitions). Free genealogy advisory services at National Library and National Archives of Ireland will not operate.

Monday 6 August:The Great Watershed – Belfast before and after the First World War, with Roger Dixon. First of the Eastside Arts Festival 2018 lunchtime lectures. Host and Venue: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast. 1pm. Free, but need to book. CANCELLED.

Friday 10 August: The Dreams Must be Dreamed: The life and times of Charlotte Despard, with Philip Orr. Third of the Eastside Arts Festival 2018 lunchtime lectures. Host and Venue: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast. 1pm. Free, but need to book. Details.

Friday, 27 July 2018

Fold3, Ancestry's specialist database of military records, has added to its British collection, as follows:

British WWII Commando Gallantry Awards:
This collection contains the names of nearly 500 British Commandos who earned a Gallantry Award during WWII. The awards include Victoria Crosses, Distinguished Service Orders, Military Crosses, Distinguished Conduct Medals and Military Medals.

The collection is presented in alphabetical order of surname and includes rank, regiment, and the date the award was issued. In some instances, the full citation was published in the London Gazette. Where applicable, that citation is attached in the comment field.

British WWII Distinguished Conduct Medal Citations:
These records are an alphabetical list of non-commissioned officers and men in the army who were awarded the second highest award for gallantry during WWII.

The records are cross-referenced to the London Gazette publication dates and tell the stories that inspired the award.

WWII Distinguished Flying Medals for British Soldiers:
This collection is an alphabetical list of nearly 6,500 recipients of the Distinguished Flying Medal award. The index was transcribed from surviving Recommendations. In some cases, they contain a cross reference to the publication date in the London Gazette.

Where no Recommendation was found, the relevant press release is entered.

British Companions of the DSO Awards, 1923-2010:
This collection is an alphabetical list of recipients of the DSO Award and subsequent First, Second, and Third Bar awards from the British Navy and Royal Marines. The records are primarily from WWII, but pre-war and post-war campaigns are also included.

The records include birthdates, family members and other biographical information along with the reason for the award recommendation.

British Recipients of the Military Cross:
This collection contains records for recipients of the Military Cross during WWI. The collection is presented in alphabetical order of surname and includes name, rank, and battalion or sub-unit and other biographical details.

Military Crosses are cited in the London Gazette and those citations are attached, including a note confirming the survival of the respective edition.

FindMyPast has uploaded a collection of official lists of British Royal Navy Officers. It's called the Britain, Royal Navy Lists, 1827-1945 collection.

The 147 publications span from 1827 to 1945 and are presented on the database as digital images of the original pages. You'll need a pdf reader to view/download them.

The amount and type of information provided in the publications varies considerably. In some, you'll find name, rank, seniority and place of service. In others you might find name, place of service and date of promotion. In others you'll find lists of senior personnel on named vessels. The image, right, is from the December 1852 list.

Thursday, 26 July 2018

Density analysis performed on the parishes containedwithin the 1302-7 valuations demonstratesmarkedly higher density within colonial regions.

A team of researchers at Trinity College Dublin has produced a series of maps to illustrate the distribution of wealth in medieval Ireland.

The data used to create the maps is based on early 14th-century papal taxation sources as they can define the extent and impact of the early English colony by using parish incomes as proxies for local wealth.

The work, led by PhD Researcher in Geography at Trinity, Christopher Chevallier, and supervised by Dr Mark Hennessy, also quantifies the damage inflicted by the Great European Famine (1315-1317) and the impact of the Bruce Invasion (1315-1318, when Edward Bruce of Scotland claimed the High Kingship of Ireland). This research is timely as the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Faughart, the final clash of the Invasion, is approaching in October this year.

To gather the sources, the team visited archives in Armagh, Paris, Kew and even the Vatican Secret Archives.

One of the major findings was that Dublin’s economic hinterland was the most expansive and extended as far west as Mullingar, whereas Kilkenny’s hinterland was the densest.

The post-invasion data shows that Gaelic Irish parishes weren’t uniformly impoverished. Rather, areas such as Thomond (which was ruled by the powerful Ó Briain dynasty) showed very high levels of wealth, suggesting a more complex Gaelic economy than often believed. Nevertheless, even after the devastation of the Bruce Invasion and Great European Famine, the colonial areas were still generally outperforming independent Gaelic areas.

You can learn more about the research and view the maps on Trinity's website - click the map image above.

FindMyPast has confirmed via Twitter that it has a qlitch in its system which is demanding researchers sign up for a subscription when trying to search and view 'free to access' records.

I became aware of the problem yesterday evening thanks to a post on Boards.ie*. The poster had been wanting to view FindMyPast.ie's indexes to the National Library of Ireland's collection of RC parish registers but was being denied access and prompted to take out a subscription. (While the indexes can be accessed on Ancestry only via subscription, they are supposed to be free on FindMyPast, provided the researcher has a free registered account.)

This morning FindMyPast has tweeted the following in reply to my contact last night:

Their reply could seem to suggest that other collections or FMP sites may be affected.

*In my opinion, the best free forum for Irish genealogists.
UPDATE, 26 July, 12:30: FindMyPast has confirmed that the technical error has been corrected and the free records should once again be free to access with a free registered account.

Thursday 26 July: Using family and local history resources online, a two-hour workshop. Host and venue: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast. The workshop starts with an orientation tour of PRONI, followed by an introduction to searching resources online. 11am to 1pm. Free but registration required. These events usually book up very quickly.

Thursday 26 July: The Great Famine, a historical walking tour of Skibereen, with Philip O'Regan. Host: Skibbereen Heritage Centre. Meet at the Courthouse in North Street, Skibbereen, Co Cork, at 1830 and finish at Skibbereen Heritage Centre at 2000. The talk is free of charge but places are limited so booking is essential. Tel: 028 40900. Details.

Thursday 26 July: Skibbereen's Soup Kitchen, a new exhibition. Venue: Exterior of the Steam Mill Building in Ilen Street, Skibbereen, County Cork. Formal launch by the Mayor of Cork, Patrick Gerard Murphy. All welcome to the launch. Sample 'Soyer's Soup'. No booking required. 8pm. Free.

Saturday 4 August: Scottish & Irish Immigration, a three-hour workshop with Maggie Loughran. Host and venue: Society of Genealogists, 14 Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Road, London EC1M 7BA, UK. Workshop explores the reasons for migration, the history and politics behind it and the type of records that you can consult when researching migrants. 2pm to 5pm. Cost: £20. Need to book.

Friday, 20 July 2018

You're in luck if you're resident in Ireland, Canada, the UK or Australia/NewZealand as these Ancestry 'territories' are holding flash sales this weekend. How much you can save depends on where you live.

See the details and prices below, noting when the discount expires, and remember that shipping/postage & packing costs are additional to the prices quoted.

All Maynooth Research Guides for Irish LocalHistory are published by Four Courts Press

The latest publication in the highly-regarded Maynooth Research Guides for Irish Local History series is the Archives of the Valuation of Ireland, 1830-1865, by Frances McGee.

The author worked as an archivist in the National Archives of Ireland (NAI) for forty years and was its Acting Director at the time of her retirement in 2014. She has now written an extensive and thorough guide to assist researchers understand one of the NAI's more complex collections.

Between 1830 and 1864, every piece of property in Ireland was valued, from houses on tiny plots of land to the great landed estates. The work of valuation created a large volume of archives that recorded the occupiers of land and houses as well as details of the location, extent and quality of their property.

The Valuation archives date from a period when few sources cover the whole country and are a rich resource for research ranging from family history to socio-economic study.

Published by Four Courts Press, the 240-page colour-illustrated paperback is now on sale for €17.95 from the publisher, and from other booksellers. ISBN: 978-1-84682-136-3.

Ireland's 'newspaper of record', The Irish Times has a special offer for overseas readers. It gives 50% off the price of either the Standard or Premium digital subscription package for a period of three months. Thereafter, you can either cancel the subscription or pay the regular price.

Both packages provide full access to the IrishTimes.com website (non-subscribers get access to only a handful of articles a week), to subscriber-only articles, special offers and the paper's Crossword Club. The Premium subscription additionally brings you The ePaper, a digital copy of the print edition.

Importantly for Irish family historians, both these packages give full access to the Irish Times Archive, which includes all editions published since the paper first appeared in 1859.

The regular price of the Standard package is £10, €12, US$12. The discount reduces the cost to £5, €6, US$6.

The regular price of the Premium package is £12, €16, US$18. With the discount, the cost is £6, €8, US$9.

To find out more about the discount and the content of both packages, click the image.

Thursday, 19 July 2018

New from Cork University Press is Children and the Great Hunger in Ireland, which explores the impact of The Famine on children and young adults, one of the most vulnerable groups in terms of disease and mortality in any sustained period of food hunger.

Published by Cork University Press

The 328-page paperback is edited by Christine Kinealy, Jason King and Gerard Moran. It takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject and includes research contributions from leading scholars on both sides of the Atlantic.

The early chapters demonstrate how government relief, most notably the Poor Law, failed to make special provision or protection for children, treating them as being just as ‘undeserving’ of assistance as adults. A consequence of this approach was exceptionally high child mortality, as the chapter, based on a study of the skeletons in the Kilkenny workhouse grave, shows. Other chapters focus on emigration, the loss of language, the maintaining of an Irish (Catholic) identity, folk memories, children’s literature, and writing a Famine curriculum.

In keeping with its multi-disciplinary approach, Children and the Great Hunger opens and concludes with reflections by award-winning Irish authors, Marita Conlon-McKenna and Michael Collins.

Family history database provider FindMyPast has announced a new partnership with DNA test supplier Living DNA.

Living DNA tests, which claim to provide twice the detail of other ancestry tests with an ability to identify DNA from 80 world regions (including 21 in Britain and Ireland) are now available to purchase at FindMyPast.co.uk costing £99; FindMyPast.com costing US$99. (The kits don't currently appear to be on sale via FindMyPast.ie or FindMyPast.com.au.)

Co-branded kits will be launched when the new integrated FindMyPast and Living DNA service is introduced later in the year.

Wednesday, 18 July 2018

Family Search has uploaded a collection of 'Family Notices' of births, marriages and deaths reported in a selection of 19th-century publications in the online British Newspaper Archive (BNA). The index to the Notices holds some 5.9million entries.

Click for enlarged view

As far as I can tell, more than 103,000 records relate to people connected with Ireland in some way. The Irish newspaper titles appear to be from Belfast, Cork and Sligo.

Images of the Family Notices can be accessed online only by LDS members or at an LDS Family History Center. Those researchers who are not LDS Members or able to visit an FHC may find the indexed data provides them with good information, even if it doesn't provide source details. See the sample to the right.

The Family Notices record-set joins a sister collection of 1.8million 'Obituaries' printed in newspaper titles held in the BNA.

It joined Family Search in March, and a quick search of the index suggests about 7,000 of the records relate to people with Irish connections. This seems a surprisingly small proportion, so don't take it as certain.

The two collections have been imaged and digitised in a collaborative project with FindMyPast.

Regular readers of Irish Genealogy News will remember that, back in early March, FindMyPast released their 'enhanced' indexes to the General Register Office's births and marriages registers on IrishGenealogy.ie.

As my original blogpost relates, the collections were launched with limited information about the records they contained, and it was soon clear to most people who used them, that the indexes were not complete. It was Genealogist John Grenham who spent time to work through the indexes in May to find that the records of 58 registration districts were missing - see his blogpost FindMyPast’s unmarked elephant traps.

Around the middle of June I noticed the two indexes had quietly been removed from FindMyPast. I had rather a lot on at the time and I'm sorry to say that I completely forgot to update this blog about it. In fact, it went right out of my head until last weekend. Apologies.

Let's hope that when the indexes return they will be complete, and with a researcher-friendly explanation of their contents.

Friday 20 July:Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger, exhibition opens. The exhibition, which features a collection from Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University, Connecticut, USA, will run to 13 October. Venue: Uillin: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Co Cork. Open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4:45pm. Details.

Saturday 21 July:The local women who became American 'War Brides' in WW1, with Damian Shiels. Host and venue: Midleton Library, Main Street,Midleton, Co. Cork. 12:15pm. Lecture accompanies launch of Damian's exhibition of War Bride portraits in the Library. Free. All welcome.

Thursday 26 July: Using family and local history resources online, a two-hour workshop. Host and venue: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast. The workshop starts with an orientation tour of PRONI, followed by an introduction to searching resources online. 11am to 1pm. Free but registration required. These events usually book up very quickly.

Thursday 26 July: The Great Famine, a historical walking tour of Skibereen, with Philip O'Regan. Host: Skibbereen Heritage Centre. Meet at the Courthouse in North Street, Skibbereen, Co Cork, at 1830 and finish at Skibbereen Heritage Centre at 2000. The talk is free of charge but places are limited so booking is essential. Tel: 028 40900. Details.

Thursday 26 July: Skibbereen's Soup Kitchen, a new exhibition. Venue: Exterior of the Steam Mill Building in Ilen Street, Skibbereen, County Cork. Formal launch by the Mayor of Cork, Patrick Gerard Murphy. All welcome to the launch. Sample 'Soyer's Soup'. No booking required. 8pm. Free.

Friday, 13 July 2018

Public access to the Registry of Deeds in Dublin has been severely restricted over the past three weeks due to essential maintenance work being carried out on the building. It was expected to fully re-open on Monday 16 July.

There's some good news and some not so good news.

While the Transcribing Room, which contains transcripts from 1708-1832 will reopen on Monday, the Transcribing Room Vault, which contains transcripts from 1896 to 1910, will remain closed until further notice.

IrishCentral.com, an online magazine aimed at Irish-Americans, has acquired The Genealogy Event, an annual 2-day Irish family history and DNA conference held in Adare in County Limerick. It will be held on Friday 31 August and Saturday 1 September.

Presentations include researching religious ancestors, Irish placenames, photo history, an overview on DNA, the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, emigration records, visiting key research repositories in Ireland, using Roots Ireland, researching common surnames, and researching across Irish government bodies.

The Friday will offer a level one DNA bootcamp ideally suited to those that have just received their DNA results and are ready to learn how to use them; Saturday sees a level two DNA bootcamp suited to those seeking advanced research techniques and result analytics.

One-to-one consultations will also be available.

The conference was founded and run by BBNY Group and has been held each summer since 2014. Under its new management, this year’s event returns to the Fitzgerald's Woodlands House Hotel in Adare. As previously, special events are held on the eve of the conference and on the Friday and Saturday evenings, providing opportunities for delegates to connect with other researchers in a more relaxed, social atmosphere.

Sponsors include Ireland of the Welcomes and The Irish Family History Foundation. The latter organisation, which manages a network of heritage centres across the island, will have three representatives presenting talks.

You can download the 2018 conference and social programme from TheGenealogyEvent.com, while tickets for the special events, conference days + lunch, DNA bootcamps, and consultations can be purchased at EventBrite.

The entrance to the passage and chamber at
nearby Newgrange, which was built 3,200 years
ago by Stone Age farmers and is aligned with
the sun at the Winter Solstice.

After several weeks of rare heatwave, Ireland's nearly scorched landscape has revealed the outline of a c2,500BC henge close to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Newgrange in County Meath.

It was discovered by a drone taking aerial images of fields in the Boyne Valley and has been described as 'a very significant find' by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

It was also a timely find; with the weather expected to see a more typical summer mix in the next week, all visual evidence of the discovery will soon be lost.

Learn more about the discovery, and view the drone footage, in this news report from RTÉ, Ireland's national public service broadcaster.
UPDATE, 26 July 2018: Since posting the above, several more archaeological discoveries have been made in the area. See this report from the Journal; it includes links to each of the stories.

Wednesday, 11 July 2018

AmericanAncestors.org, the database of the New England Historical Genealogical Society (NEHGS) is opening up all its online databases for seven days.

More than 1.4billion names are held in the database, which includes many important collections for tracing Irish emigrants to the USA, and their descendants. Among them are the Massachusetts, Archdiocese of Boston RC registers, 1789-1900, which is growing at one heck of a pace while NEHGS volunteers index the volumes, parish by parish; censuses; bmd announcements in local newspapers; probate and vital records; immigration records and much more.

Tuesday, 10 July 2018

The hidden heritage of Belfast’s first municipal cemetery is to be opened up with the help of a £1.68m National Lottery grant.

Announcing the award, Paul Mullan, the Head of Heritage Lottery Fund Northern Ireland, said: “Belfast City Cemetery is a place of immense heritage value. It was the city’s first municipal cemetery, it is the final resting place of many influential figures from the city’s past and it is one of the largest green spaces in west Belfast.

“We often think of cemeteries as places for the dead, but our parks and cemeteries provide vital connections to our history, our community and our natural heritage and are also very much for the living. Thanks to National Lottery players this grant will support vital restorations right across this extraordinary cemetery; saving monuments at risk and maximising its potential as a green space for people to visit, use and enjoy.”

Belfast City Cemetery was opened in 1869 and contains a wealth of historic features, monuments and memorials in the Greek and Roman styles that were fashionable during the Victorian era. The graves and tombs of many prominent Industrial figures and pioneers of education and social justice can be found there, including Sir Edward Harland, co-founder of the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company; Margaret Byers, educational campaigner and founder of Victoria College, and Sir William Whitla, physician and former Pro-Vice Chancellor of Queen's University.

But it also has areas of lesser-known but significant heritage that remain unmarked. These include the Jewish cemetery with its separate walls and entrances which dates from 1871; the Poor Ground where around 63,000 people are buried in unmarked graves, and the hidden underground wall which was designed to separate Catholic and Protestant graves.

The new project will see the restoration of important historic features such as the Central Steps and Victorian fountains. New signage and interpretation will be installed to raise awareness of this hidden heritage and a dedicated programme of live events, tours and workshops will be used to attract more visitors.

The Ulster Historical Foundation is to publish a new book – Transatlantic Lives: The Irish Experience in Colonial America – in September.

Edited by Linde Lunney, James Quinn and Dr William Roulston, it features sixty biographical essays from the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography and details the careers of a selection of Irish emigrants to North America in the colonial period (including the British territories that would later become Canada).

The individuals chosen are a representative sample of some of the more notable figures among these emigrants. Colonial administrators, soldiers and clergymen predominate. Among clergymen, Presbyterians (of various hues) are the most numerous, but space has also been found for Methodists, Quakers, Anglicans and Catholics, all of whom made their contribution to shaping the religious culture of the colonies.

The selection, however, also includes educators, doctors, writers, artists, printers, merchants and even a (female) pirate to give some sense of the diversity of such emigrants, and their varying contributions to the economic and cultural development of the colonies. Most of these stayed in the colonies, but a sufficient number returned to Ireland, providing some evidence for the contention that emigration to the colonies was not always an irrevocable decision.

Pre-publication orders are now being taken by the publishers via BooksIreland. Pre-ordering brings a saving of £2 from the regular price of £11.99.

Monday, 9 July 2018

The Irish Newspaper Archive (INA) has added The Dublin Journal to its database. The editions uploaded are from 1811-1825, with some gaps. As far as I'm aware, this paper isn't available online elsewhere.

The paper was founded by George Faulkner, a prominent bookseller and publisher, in 1726. For a time, it was one of the capital's leading periodicals.

If you want to check out INA's brand-new title and don't already have a subscription, you'll be pleased to know there's currently a 40% discount offer running. Use the coupon code USA40, and don't delay – the offer runs out tonight.

Monday 9 July:NLI Reading Room and Manuscript Room closed. Venue: National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. On-going Monday closures are to facilitate extensive redevelopment of the premises. All other services/exhibitons/cafe, including Genealogy Advisory Service, will open today at 11am to facilitate an early staff development meeting. Details.

Friday, 6 July 2018

Ancestry UK is offering four full days of free access to its entire collection of UK and Irish records, including the recently-uploaded 1939 Register (which could be useful for those with Irish family who had migrated, temporarily or permanently, to England or Wales before the start of WW2).

You can check out the full menu of included record sets on Ancestry's unfortunately named UK Records page.

The free access weekend is now live and will continue until 23:59 GMT on Monday 9 July.

Although you don't need a subscription to view the records, you do need a registered account. If you don't already have one, it's quick and easy and free to set one up with just your name and email. No financial or other personal details are requested. You'll then be sent a user name and password to gain access to the collection.

Thursday, 5 July 2018

They are different per 'FindMyPast territory', product and subscription term, and entitlement depends on your status as either a new customer or an existing customer. The only thing that applies to all the discounts is that they will expire at 11:59pm GMT Sunday 15 July.

I've set them out below, according to 'territory'. You'll find detailed T&Cs on the landing page of each link.

RootsIreland.ie has added more than 12,000 Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland records to its Waterford Heritage Centre database.

The Church of Ireland records (11,772 of them) are transcriptions from marriage registers, while 1,126 Roman Catholic records are transcriptions from the Baptism registers of Tramore / Carbally parish. The earliest of the RC records is from the year 1798.

Wednesday, 4 July 2018

Josepha Madigan TD, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, has today opened the new Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre at Parliament Buildings, College Green, Dublin.

The Bank of Ireland has made the space available for the new centre for a ten-year period, during which time the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht will manage and animate it.

The official opening of the Centre also saw the launch by the President of Ireland Michael D Higgins of the centre's first exhibition: Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again. It is dedicated to the life and works of the late, great Séamus Heaney, a Nobel prize winner for Literature.

Listen, Now, Again is being managed and curated by the National Library of Ireland (see video below). Opening hours are 10am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday and admission is free. Find out more here.

The new Cultural and Heritage Centre will be open to the public from this Friday (6th July) and can be accessed by the public via the Gandon-designed entrance on Westmoreland Street. This will be the first time these doors have been opened to the public for a decade.

The Dublin-based Irish Newspaper Archives is marking America's Independence Day with a 40% discount on both its 30-day and 12-month subscription packages.

The online database holds 65 local, regional and national newspapers, with the earliest dating from 1738. The holding for many of the titles runs to recent or current times. You can see a full list of the titles and the span of years held for each one here.

The discount reduces the cost of the 30-day sub from €£$29 to €£$17.40 and the annual sub from €£$149 to €£$89.40.

To take advantage of the offer, which will expire on Monday 9 July, visit the INA Subscribe page and enter the coupon code USA40 when prompted; you will then see the discounted price.

For one day only – that day being Independence Day, 4th of July – Ancestry.com is offering a 40% discount on its one-month and six-month membership subscriptions.

You'll have to be quick, as the offer expires tonight at 11:59pm ET.

The discount is available to new subscribers only and cannot be used for the renewal of current subs. It can be applied to your choice of the US Discovery, World Explorer or All Access packages. See below for the regular and discounted prices.

If you take up Ancestry's offer, be aware that your subscription will automatically renew at list price after the introductory 1-month or 6-month offer. If you don’t want to renew, you can cancel at least two days before your renewal date by visiting the My Account section of the site or by contacting Ancestry directly. See the Renewal and Cancellation Terms for further details.

Tuesday, 3 July 2018

The publishers of the US-based Family Tree magazine and The Family Tree series of genealogy guides – my own Irish Genealogy Guide included – is celebrating Independence Day with a generous (and rare) half price sale of its vast library of books, dvds, cheat sheets, webinars and other resources.

This is serious bargain time, so click the image, right, to visit the shop.

You'll find my Guide, published last year and still very much up to date, among the best-sellers (blush!) and reduced from its regular price of US$26.99 to a mere US$13.50. Fantastic value, especially for the target Irish-American researcher who's struggling to work back to Ireland from their immigrant ancestor. It's full of tips and advice to ease what can be a challenging journey.

The sale will run for four days (it expires 6 July), and you don't need a coupon code because each of the products in the store is marked up with the discounted price.

Blaine Bettinger, author of the best-selling The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy and The Genetic Genealogist blog has launched DNA-Central.com.

Currently in Beta, the website is designed to help the millions of family historians now taking DNA tests to understand and use their results. It plans to become a comprehensive and always up-to-date one-stop shop for genealogists, and access to its educational articles, newsletters, videos and monthly webinars will be via an annual (US$99) or monthly (US$9.99) subscription.

The launch sees the publication of an exclusive collection of online courses designed to help researchers interpret their test results. See the box below for the current titles and list of those in the pipe.

You can find out more about the site and the full range of resources it will offer by clicking the image above, or reading an in-depth overview in Blaine's weekend blogpost: DNA Central is live!

The 4th edition of Derry – A City Invincible has been published. Written by Brian Mitchell MAGI, Genealogist for Derry City and Strabane District Council, the 100-page paperback outlines the history of Derry from its geological formation to the present day, and also explores its ambitions for the future.

This book is available in Museum and Visitor Centre gift shops in Derry and provides visitors to the city with local history context and an idea of what Derry was like when an ancestor lived here and/or departed from its quays for a new life.

It is not, unfortunately, readily available outside the city, although you may be lucky enough to hunt down used earlier editions online.

The New England Historical Genealogical Society (NEHGS) has uploaded more Roman Catholic baptism, marriage and confirmation registers to its Archdiocese of Boston collections on AmericanAncesters.org.

From St Catherine of Siena, Charlestown, five new volumes of registers have added more than 7,000 new records and 26,000 new names to the searchable database at Massachusetts RC Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1900. The first mass at St Catherine's was held in December 1887 and the indexed registers span 1888-1900. These records can be accessed only by Individual-level and above NEHGS members.

Meanwhile, six register volumes from St Patrick, Lowell, have joined the free, browse database – Massachusetts: (Image-Only) RC Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1900 – adding more than 1,900 images. Irish immigrants were attracted to came Lowell's industrial jobs, and worshipped together as early as 1822, although a church was not built until 1831. The records span 1836-1900. You need a free Guest account to explore this database.

To mark American Independence Day on 4 July, My Heritage is opening up its US Newspapers collection by giving free access to all researchers for six days.

The free access starts today and will expire on Sunday 8 July.

All 23million newspaper records are included and no subscription will be needed to search and view them. The US Newspaper collection currently holds newspapers from thirteen states: Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia.

November - half price savings

Indispensable research companion

Welcome to Irish Genealogy News

Irish genealogy research is famous for being difficult, if not impossible. This reputation isn't entirely deserved, although there can be some fundamental difficulties in discovering your Irish ancestry, particularly if you don't know where your ancestors lived. That's why I launched my website, Irish Genealogy Toolkit. It's a free online guide to Irish family history research, and it's designed to helpyou to find your heritage.

This blog runs in parallel with the Toolkit and is not sponsored, aligned or connected with any commercial organisations. As its name suggests, it carries the latest Irish genealogy news and it's read by professional and amateur genealogists who recognise its independence and wide coverage of news.

Be sure to bookmark my blog's home page, and check in regularly to keep up to date with what's happening in the world of Irish family history.